Family Matters
by Landlady of the Universe
Summary: So Koenma's on a power trip, again. There's a demon in Yusuke's school. And someone had the bright idea to make family economics a required course. So what does this all have to do with Hiei anyway? HieiKeiko DISCONTINUED
1. Prologue

Family Matters

By Landlady of the Universe

Summary: So Koenma's on a power trip, again.  There's a demon in Yusuke's school.  And someone had the bright idea of making family economics a required course.  So what does this all have to do with Hiei anyway?

Genre: Humor/Romance

Pairing: Hiei/Keiko

A/N: *sigh* I know someone is going to murder me for starting a new fic when I still have my Inu-Yasha fics to finish.  But the idea just popped into my head and wouldn't leave me alone, so… here it is.  Kinda short I know, but I do have the next chapter already written; I just wanted to see what people think first.  So leave lots of nice reviews and the next chappy will be out soon, which will explain what's going on.

Disclaimer: College * English Major = poor as dirt = me no own YYH

Prologue

There was no doubt about it.

Hiei was having the worst day of his life.  And that was an understatement.  A **gross** understatement.

And that **woman**, with her short brown locks blowing in the breeze and her lips pursed into a cute little pout, was not making things any better by lecturing him.

"I'm not any happier about this than you are Hiei," she was saying sternly, "but this is a school assignment like any other, and I am going to …"

Hold it.

Did he say **cute**?

He had to be sick.  Yes, that was the most logical answer to his assessment of Keiko's … lips.  Never mind the fact that he had never been sick a day in his life.

Perhaps he could take advantage of this.  Surely Koenma would take him off of this hell case if he was ill.  Then again, he would have to explain exactly how he came to that conclusion, which meant…

Keiko's lips.

Sigh.

"Are you listening to me Hiei?"  And the little brat had the nerve to jab him in the chest.  Him!  Ok, so he was only a few centimeters taller than she was, but still.  You'd think, after the whole kidnapping and the mind control and the demon sword thing, she'd be at least a little afraid of him.  So what if they were outside in the schoolyard where everyone could see them.  A little threat like a death sentence wouldn't be enough to stop him if he decided that he needed to dispose of her (and her cute little lips, but he was pointedly not thinking about that).

And yet, despite these simple, quite obvious facts, Keiko simply was not intimidated.  In the least.

"No," he replied.  After all, if she insisted on not being afraid of him – no doubt solely to annoy him – then he was damn well going to do his best to anger her as much as possible.

Perhaps that was a mistake.

Damn, but it would be a miracle if he didn't go deaf after this whole ordeal.

"And if my grades suffer just because your arrogant ass gets lazy, then I'll find a way to make you pay!!" she shrieked.  Hiei fought the urge to throw her into a wall, though he wasn't quite sure why.  Oh yea.  Death sentence.  Not to mention Yusuke.

Still, nowhere did it say that he couldn't scare the hell out of her.  Fragile little thing didn't even realize that he was pinning her to the brick wall of the school until it was done.  She gaped at him, and finally a little fear seeped into her eyes.  Maybe he would make her beg.  Yes, a little begging would make him feel better.  A sinister smile curved his lips.  "And how exactly do you plan to do that?"

"Umm…"  Make that a lot of begging.  With flushed cheeks and less clothes, much less clothes.

Hiei blinked as he realized that he was absently toying with the collar of Keiko's uniform.  She had frozen, stunned – finally – into silence.  With one last smirk and a promise to himself to get laid as soon as possible before he mounted Urameshi's mate, and left, not even a breeze remained to say that he had been there.

LL: *sigh* You know, this was supposed to be a nice and happy start to a functional relationship, not a huge wad of sexual tension.

Hiei: I have to protest this.  There is no way that I would be lusting after that, that girl.

Keiko: Like I would get anywhere near you!

Hiei: Oh yea, you know you want me; you just don't want to admit it!

Keiko: In your dreams!  You're the one that wants me!

LL: *whispering to B0b* This is going to be more fun than I thought.


	2. Assignments

A/N: Here it is, chapter 1 as promised.  Thanks for all the reviews so far, I really appreciate it!  Chapter 2 will be a little delayed though, since I've got less than 48 hours until my hardest final *cringe*, but, it's only 4 days until summer!  Oh yea, and since I forgot to say this last chapter, a big thanks to Emcron for the title.

Chapter 1: Assignments

Kurama's window was unlocked, as usual.  Kurama was doing his homework.  As usual.  It would be the end of the world before the kitsune decided that, just maybe, he didn't need to relearn something that he'd only known for about two hundred and fifty years.  And heaven forbid that he get a 99 percent on an assignment!

Kurama was just as bad as Keiko.

Hiei grumbled a stream of curses under his breath, promising a variety of messy and very painful fates to a certain human woman if he saw her before he absolutely had to.  (Which, if he got his way, would be never.)

"Something wrong Hiei?" Kurama asked innocently.

Kitsunes had to be the most annoying creatures in the universe.  He was sure of it.  That bastard was actually amused!  No doubt he knew every detail of his predicament better than Hiei himself, and he actually found it funny.

Hmm… it wasn't illegal to kill another demon.  And he was really in the mood for some bloodshed at the moment.  Still, Kurama did have his uses.  Damn.  Maybe he could find something cute and fluffy to take his frustrations out on.  Or perhaps that idiot Kuwabara.  Yes, Kuwabara would be easy to pick a fight with, as he was constantly just asking to get his ass kicked.

But first… "Tell me about this 'marriage' thing," he demanded.

The humor drained off the kitsune's face to be replaced by shock.  But Kurama knew better than to ask why Hiei wanted to know, so instead he did his best to answer the fire demon's question.  "Umm… well Hiei, when two people love each other very much…"

Twenty minutes and a much-annoyed Hiei later, the fire demon had a much better idea of the human concept of marriage.  And quite frankly, it was the stupidest thing he'd ever heard.  "So it's like mating but you're stuck with them?"

"Something like that," Kurama replied with a sigh.  He should have known better than to try and make Hiei understand.  Demons occasionally had life mates, but even then they were far from monogamous.  "Why did you want to know anyway?"

Hiei looked sullen.  "I got married to Keiko."

Kurama toppled out of his chair, which was quite a feat seeing as his butt had been firmly planted in the middle of the seat and all four legs had been flat on the floor.  He stayed on the ground, not quite trusting himself to keep a straight face around Hiei at the moment.

It was strange.  Not the fact that Keiko had somehow managed to trick Hiei into marrying her, for he knew that she was more than capable of such a thing.  But he had always thought that she had a thing for Yusuke.

"Don't strain yourself thinking too much, fox.  It is a school assignment; 'family economics' or something like that."

Kurama sat up slowly, suddenly feeling very sorry for Keiko for having to put up with Hiei for however long this assignment was going to last.

The doorbell rang, and his mother answered.  A few moments later, she called, "Suuichi!  Your friend Keiko is here!"

"Where is he?!" Keiko yelled as she flung open the door.  "I know that little shrimp is here; don't you dare try to hide him!"  Then she caught sight of Hiei.

Kurama wisely decided that it would be a good idea not to come between the – ahem – newlyweds.  Scooting as far out of the way as possible without leaving the room – he really didn't want to miss this – the kitsune sat back to watch.

"Think you can get out of this do you?" the girl yelled as Hiei began to inch toward the window.  "Well think again, because I've found a way to make this count!"

On second thought, Kurama began to feel sorry for Hiei.

The fire demon turned back to Keiko and growled in a way that confused the kitsune for a moment.  Upon more careful inspection, Kurama took in the way that Hiei's eyes remained firmly fixed upon the girl's face, as if he was afraid that his gaze would slip lower if he wasn't careful.  And suddenly, Kurama had a very hard time keeping a straight face.

"Oh really?  And what's that?" Hiei growled, taking a step toward the woman.  Kurama choked as he tried to swallow a laugh.

Hiei had a thing for Keiko!

And Yusuke was going to murder him.  Brutally.  Poor Hiei didn't stand a chance.

"I'll have a little talk with Koenma – seeing as the way I hear it you have to obey him – and he'll make sure that you are properly motivated to do well on this assignment," the girl said, looking quite proud of herself.

She was a devious little bitch wasn't she?  Must be what Hiei saw in her.

The fire demon smirked.  "I'd like to see that.  You'd be too scared of Koenma to say a damn thing.  He's ten feet tall, and hideous and eats little girls like you for breakfast."

Keiko smirked back.  "Nice try.  Yusuke told me that he's a toddler."  Her smile grew wider, baring her teeth in a positively evil grin.  "So don't you dare think that you are going to get away with making me take care of our son all by myself."

Kurama nearly passed out.  Son?!  Whatever happened to gestation and childbirth and what the hell was Yusuke going to say, and why the hell did this defy all laws of nature?

Blink.  Blink.

Oh.

Keiko was holding up a life-sized doll clad only in a blue diaper by the ankle, dangling it upside-down…

"I don't even like kids, and anyway, we'll fail if you don't help out!"

… and it was **dripping** on his nice **clean** floor!

If it smelled, Kurama was going to murder both of them, to hell with the laws and morals and Yusuke's anger.

"Now come on hubby-dearest.  We've got a lot of work to do."  And with a goodbye to the kitsune, Keiko stuffed the baby into her bag, latched onto Hiei's ear, and dragged him away.

For the first time in either of his lives, Kurama wondered if it was possible to die laughing.

LL: Ok, so it's still kinda short, but it's longer than the last chapter, ne?

Hiei: *blink*blink* That was so utterly humiliating. *jumps on LL with sword (the metal one) drawn* Change it now woman!

LL: Oy, there are so many things wrong with this position that I'm not even going to comment.

Keiko: *feels LL's forehead* Those finals must be getting to you, are you sure you are feeling all right?

LL: *suspiciously* I thought you were mad at me for pairing you up with Hiei.

Keiko: *blushes* Well, I was, but then I actually took the time to look at Hiei, and well…

LL: Yea.

Keiko: So I'm gonna be on top, huh?

Hiei: WTF!!! *pokes LL with sword* You better put me on top, woman!!!

LL: @_@ ------- passed out from Hiei jumping on her stomach

(Don't tell Hiei, but we actually have no idea what's going to happen next, seeing as this all came from a random burst of inspiration and we're all out of ideas (not to mention that studying for finals is not very inspiring).  So if you've got any that you want to share, jokes, Hiei/Keiko torture, plot, or whatever, let us know.  And to show our appreciation, if we use your idea, then we'll put you in for a cameo Hiei (or whatever char you want) glomp/grope.  So make them good!  And thanks a bunch in advance!! ~Landlady and muses)


	3. Revenge

Whee, I survived finals!  Granted, I haven't had the guts to look at my grades yet, but hey, writing fics is more important, right?  I'm afraid that my updates after this one are going to be pretty non-existent for a while, since I'm headed off to A-kon next week *bounce*, and almost as soon as I get back, I'm getting dragged, not entirely unwillingly, overseas to visit family and see the Lock Ness monster ^_~.  I'll have plenty of time to write on the plane though, so hopefully I'll have a few chapters when I get back.

Alastair – Be my muse.  Please.  I have a free slot and the pay's good.  (B0b: What pay? … and what free slot?) *shoves B0b into closet* Ok, so the pay is really only the occasional virtual ice cream sundae.  But … but … (B0b: *sticks head out of closet* You can't think of a good reason, can you?) Damn.

Disclaimer: I have nothing against soybeans, really.  I just don't think that they should masquerade as real food. (Particularly frozen food, because thawed soybean food is really, really nasty, as in not fit for garbage disposal consumption.)

Now that my ass is covered and the health freaks won't attempt to murder me in a soybean rights protest, on with the fic.

Chapter 2: Revenge

Someone was going to pay for this.

Hiei mentally ticked off the list of culprits in his mind as he was dragged down the street to Keiko only knows where.

Kurama.  No.  The only way the he could be farther from this whole thing was to be in Makai.

Kuwabara.  Tempting, but no.  The idiot didn't have the brains to think something like this up.

Yusuke.  Possible.  If he had actually been in class for once while they had been paired up for this assignment, then he probably would have been the one subjected to this.

Koenma.  Another tempting one.  The brat had probably known that something like this would happen.  And he was pretty sure that Koenma had been the one to put him in Keiko's class for this mission.

Keiko.  He lingered on this one the longest.  She really hadn't wanted to be paired up with him, and she was too honest to cheat on an assignment…

And since when had he started to make excuses for pretty – if rather annoying – women?

Yup.  It was all Keiko's fault.

And he was going to make her pay if it was the last thing he did.

In the meantime, however, he would settle for finding out where they were headed, and possibly prying her hand off of his wrist.

"Oi, wench," he began, intending to be perfectly reasonable.

But no.  The woman had to completely ignore him, unless you counted the tightening of her grip and the sharp little fingernails that dug into that tender spot on the inside of his wrist.

What was her problem?  He called women 'wench' all the time, and they never got mad at him.  Then again, those women were prostitutes in Makai.

Hmm, prostitutes.  Note to self: find cute whore as soon as possible and stop looking at Keiko's ass.

Well, ok.  But still, it wasn't like it was an insult… Ok, so it was an insult.

Damn.

Hiei sighed.  He really hated talking himself into a corner like this.  One day, he was going to figure out how he did that and stop it once and for all.

But back to his problem.  Now that he had successfully decided that calling Keiko 'wench' was a bad idea, he had to find something to call her.  Not by her name, naturally, since that would be conceding defeat.  So what then?

Hiei's gaze trailed from the delicate hand wrapped not so delicately around his wrist, up her slender arm, past her lips (and what cute pouty lips they were), to the determined look in her eyes.

And Hiei decided that it was time for plan B.

"Where are we going?" he asked innocently.  Or, as innocently as a Jaganshi fire demon could manage.  In other words, he growled. 

Keiko glared at him without releasing his wrist, not intimidated in the least (what a surprise!).  "We're here."

The fire demon looked up at the storefront of the huge supermarket that Keiko had brought (read: dragged) him to.  At his confused (blank) look, the woman added.  "It's one of our assignments.  We have to buy a week's worth of nutritional food for our 'family' on a budget of 15,000 yen."

"You do know that this isn't due for another four weeks, right?" Hiei asked just to make sure.

"The sooner we get this over with the better."

She did have a point there.

Hiei sighed, giving into the inevitable.  There really was no way he was going to get out of this.

So … what the hell.  If you beat 'em, join 'em.  If he was destined to suffer this humiliation, then he might as well have as much fun as possible.

"Um, Hiei, why are you grinning at me like that?"

The fire demon did his best to wipe the rather disturbing smile from his face before he replied.  "No reason, _koishii_."  He slipped an arm around the already startled Keiko's waist and led her through the sliding doors into the supermarket.

Oh yes, he thought as he looked down at Keiko's beat red face.  This was going to be fun.

Ok, so maybe he exaggerated a little.  A lot.  Ten minutes later, Hiei was thoroughly bored.  He had already dragged their 'son' out of Keiko's bag and convinced (ok, conned) her into carrying it around while they mock shopped.  Unfortunately for the fire demon, once Keiko immersed herself in an assignment, she lost the ability to be embarrassed, or get angry, or exhibit any more emotion than a stoned frog for that matter.

Suddenly, something occurred to him.  Quite forcefully.

"Oww," Hiei commented intelligently as he picked himself up off the floor where he'd been knocked over by a little human brat on the rampage.  Keiko didn't look up from her study of the nutritional contents of unidentifiable soybean product that was attempting (and failing) to do an impression of pizza.

Glad that she was distracted, Hiei prepared to pound said little brat into oblivion.  At least until he saw what the kid was holding, a huge vat of …

SWEET SNOW!!!

Keiko suddenly found herself experiencing a strange case of horizontal vertigo (.) as Hiei grabbed her wrist and set off at top speed through the store in search of the ice cream.  Poor (ha!) Keiko could do nothing but get dragged through the store, followed by the stares of the other shoppers as the fire demon continued his frantic search.

It ended quite abruptly as Hiei and Keiko found out first hand that tile floors didn't not provide much fiction when attempting to stop.  Hiei went face first into a bucket of chocolate, much to his delight.  Keiko was not so fortunate.

One minute, Hiei was drowning – quite happily, thank you – in sweet snow.  The next, the fire demon was beginning to be worried that the ice cream had somehow damaged his vision (it wouldn't do that to him!), for all he saw was red.  Backing up minutely, he realized that the red was actually Keiko's face, flushed with fury.

Some distant corner of his brain was sounding the alarm with all its might, attempting to warn him to watch out for the very pissed off woman in front of him, but …

The sweet snow called.  And who was he, lowly Hiei, to deny it.

Keiko seemed to have picked up on the fire demon's fixation on the chocolate ice cream in her hands, for she stopped yelling at him, and moved the bucket to her right.  Hiei's eyes followed hungrily.  To her left.  Up.  Down.  Everywhere the chocolate ice cream went, the fire demon's eyes tracked it mercilessly.

Keiko grinned suddenly.  "Do you want this Hiei?" she asked sweetly.  Too sweetly.

He nodded as if in a trance, reaching out for the bucket.  Keiko swiped it away from his reach and leaned down as if to whisper in his ear.

"THEN DON'T YOU EVER EMBARRASS ME LIKE THAT AGAIN!!!!!!!!!!"

Hiei blinked.  His Jagan eye glowed.

And roughly ten minutes later, Keiko was buying enough sweet snow for Hiei to really drown in.

Koishii – beloved; koibito is often used in the same context, but I think that koishii is a little more correct to use as a nickname, since it's an adjective while koibito is a noun.  Plus, I think it's prettier. ^_^;

Hiei: *smirk* Jagan eye – 347, Opposing forces – 0

LL: Actually, it's: Hiei – 1, Keiko – 12.

Hiei: 12!?!

LL: Give or take.

Keiko: *surprisingly Hiei-like smirk* Never underestimate the power of the Keiko.  Yusuke did, and look what happened to him.

Hiei: What did happen to Yusuke anyway?

LL: Oh, he'll show up sooner or later to kick the crap out of you … but you aren't supposed to know that.

Hiei: *hides behind Keiko* Save me, Keiko-chan!


End file.
